Sunset Bain (Earth-616)
, ; former member of the ' Inner Circle | Relatives = | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Baintronics Headquarters, Manhattan, New York City, New York; formerly Baintronics, Inc. Facility, Seattle, Washington | Gender = Female | Height = 5'6" | Weight = 140 lbs | Eyes = Brown | Hair = Brown | UnusualFeatures = | CharRef = | Citizenship = American | MaritalStatus = Single | Occupation = Owner and CEO of Baintronics, Inc. | Education = Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Origin = Human | PlaceOfBirth = San Diego, California | Creators = Tom DeFalco; Steve Ditko | First = Machine Man #17 | Quotation = I supply sophisticated weaponry to an elite clientele of underworld entrepreneurs and Machine Man is the most resourceful, the most efficient, multi-functional combat unit I've ever seen! | Speaker = Madame Menace | QuoteSource = Machine Man Vol 1 17 | HistoryText = Sunset Bain was born and raised in San Diego, California. She had a genius intellect and became an expert in advanced technology. As a young girl she met robotic genius Dr. Abel Stack, and was impressed by his brilliance. She attended M.I.T., where she seduced undergraduate Tony Stark into revealing the security codes for Stark Industries. Shortly thereafter a force of masked men invaded and stole several prototypes. Within a year, Baintronics Incorporated was founded and Sunset broke it off with Stark. While Baintronic maintained a spotless reputation, Sunset assumed the Madame Menace persona and sold high-tech weaponry to criminals through an underground seasonal catalog of armaments. When Machine Man lost an arm while fighting Baron Brimstone and the Satan Squad, Madame Menace bought it, obtaining a low price by threatening the seller "with one of her flesh-eating roaches." Her plans for reverse engineering the limb were interrupted when Machine Man came to claim it. Despite her electromagnets and sonic disrupter cannon, Machine Man prevailed, and Sunset had to blow up her yacht to escape. An accidental run-in with Alpha Flight members Aurora, Northstar and Sasquatch eventually persuaded her to set aside her Machine Man machinations for a while. Sunset next showed up in a meeting with Tony Stark which was interrupted when a damaged Machine Man showed up with the head of Jocasta, having lost a battle to Terminus. Stark changed into Iron Man and brought the damaged androids to Baintronics, where under the guise of assistance, Sunset created knockoff duplicates of the robots. When the repaired Machine Man left, Sunset managed to give him the fake Jocasta. As Madame Menace, Sunset teamed up with the New Enforcers in their plot to take over the fallen Kingpin's crime cartel. Ostensibly, Bain did this in order to study the New Enforcers technology, including Dragon Man, Dreadnought and the Super-Adaptoid. Having failed to decode the intricacies of Jocasta's A.I., Sunset decided to hire Tony Stark to investigate. As Stark was already employed otherwise, Sunset hired the new War Machine to destroy his current employers. After Iron Man defeated Fin Fang Foom, Baintronics took the contract for transporting the beast's massive bulk. Using this as an in, Sunset asked Tony to work for her again. Growing suspicious, Stark accepted in order to learn more. Stark then freed Jocasta and persuaded the new War Machine to stop working for Sunset Bain. Later, Sunset hired Taskmaster to sabotage a Stark Enterprises operation. In lieu of paying him, she betrayed him to the police. In retaliation, the Taskmaster instigated a war between the Triads and Baintronics. He even managed to shoot Sunset in the shoulder. Afterawards, the Baintronics fell on tough times. Parnell Jacobs and Sunset both tried to use Stuart Clarke to get the other's half of the War Machine Armor as Jacobs had the body and she had the head. She seduced Clarke into shooting Jacobs, but when she found the location of the rest of the armor she knocked Clarke out. In retaliation, Clarke put the Punisher on Sunset's trail, and he shot her. Sunset appered to have survived the Punisher's attack. Fueled by her obsession with Machine Man, Sunset tried to lift him up when he was going through an existential crisis so that she could antagonize him again. Bain tracked him down to State 51, a giant flying fortress with staged environments where Aaron was using androids of different super heroes to simulate scenarios for him to reminisce to a robotic therapist. Sunset and her mercenaries interrupted Aaron's session, hijacked State 51, and attempted to make it land on top of Bombay. Aaron used the androids to try to stop Bain's mercenaries and evacuate the city, but was pushed to assimilate the entirety of the fortress, turning it into a giant-sized version of himself temporarily in the process. Machine Man contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. afterwards and had Sunset detained. Sunset rejoiced on the fact she helped Aaron mature as a person and kissed him. She was subsequently taken away, but her transport's pilot appeared to be in league with her. Baintronics and Sunset returned to Tony Stark's radar when he discovered her company had used illegally-acquired Stark tech to develop an advanced military vehicle called the Manticore. As Iron Man, Stark confronted Bain and convinced her to hand over the Manticore. Not long afterwards, Bain became assosicated with Tony's adoptive brother Arno Stark. When Tony Stark launched to the public a virtual reality called the eScape, Sunset allied herself with the villain the Controller. The Controlled hijacked the eScape interfances used by consumers to enthrall and leech off their mental energies, and employed a Baintronics manufacturing and fulfillment center to send them real-life weapons all over the world. Feigning no responsibility, Sunseit sent her security team to help take down the Controller. Under the pretense to offer help, she also requested partial access to the eScape's network, which was used by Arno to gain full access and steal data. After Tony Stark became convinced that he was an artificial being and a simulation of the real, late Tony, Sunset and Arno colluded with Senator Miles Brickman to question Tony's status as a real person. In the end, Arno helped delegitimize his own brother, and took control of his company, Stark Unlimited. Afterwards, he and Sunset merged S.U. with Baintronics. | Powers = | Abilities = Genius Intelligence: An industrialist and an inventor, Madame Menace possesses a genius-level intellect. She earned her degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. | Strength = Madame Menace possesses the strength level of a woman her age, size and weight who engages in moderate regular exercise. | Weaknesses = | Equipment = | Transportation = | Weapons = | Notes = | Trivia = * Bain has claimed that she gave herself the name "Sunset." * Sunset is five years older than Tony Stark. | Links = * Sunset Bain at Wikipedia }} Category:Millionaires Category:Inventors Category:Robotics Category:Engineers Category:Businesspeople Category:Scientists Category:M.I.T. Student